Hello friends,
It has been a while, how are you all? Coco and I are well, living our London summer to the fullest, with a couple of sojourns to the seaside - Anglesey and Whitstable. We have stories, recipes and recommendations a plenty for you, and we’ll aim to be back in your inboxes in much more regular intervals.
Where to start? Perhaps, I did this so you don’t have to…
As you know by now, wine is a pretty serious hobby of mine, particularly if you could see my wine rack. So, of course, when I see ‘celebrity’ wines, I have to try them. In this case, it was the Gino D’Campo wine range (and full disclosure I could only get the white and red via Asda).
Well, I definitely took this one for the team, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone with a functioning sense of taste for anything other than cooking (for that it did quite well). On the other hand, if you’re still struggling post-Covid and don’t want to drink your nice wine without tasting it, this could be for you!
What I can recommend though, is planning a birthday surprise afternoon for your brother. In our house, out of the four of us, my brother, dad and I have birthdays within a week, yep I know, super expensive for my poor mum! As dad and I are on consecutive days, so we’re often together and in recent years have been away (this year was Anglesey - more on that in a later edition).
Anyway, when we’re away for the latter two, it is my role as big sister to take my brother for a good meal. There’s occasionally requests and specifications, this year though, he left it all to me… So I did what any good sister (and mildly food obsessed person) does and plans, books and orchestrates the best surprise (which involved a guest appearance from our mum, resulting in a hilariously loud expletive from Ben, in a thank goodness, quiet restaurant).
The only instructions he got was to meet us at Notting Hill Station, from there a short walk led us to a phenomenal restaurant, Caractere, run by Michel Roux Jr’s daughter and her husband. We had the lunch time deal of 3 courses for £50, coupled with the wine addition of £15 per person for half a bottle (this is by far the best deal, as wines started at over £40 a bottle).
I obviously started with a dirty vodka martini while we waited for the birthday boy. We were then given an amuse bouche, of a tiny, delicate beetroot tartlet and a puffed piece of penne with an anchovy mayo inside, along with a still warm boule of sourdough. The staff were incredibly attentive, and were excellent with my allergies, bringing oil and automatically amending, adjusting and recommending as we went.
The bottom row are our starters, Mum had the house speciality - cacio e pepe, with celeriac ribbons instead of pasta. Unsurprisingly Ben and I ate the same, slow cooked cuttlefish with gnoccho (big gnocchi) which came with a deep fried claw. It was absolutely sublime.
As you can see, everything was beautifully plated. For our mains, Mum had fish, I think, it was the monkfish, which came with courgette, sea lettuce, cockles and mint. We had dry aged duck, which came with pickled beetroot, wild garlic, one of the best red wine jus that I have ever tasted, and perhaps the best part, a confit leg and I think foie gras bon bon.
Desert wise, we had one of each - guess which Ben had ;) he had a Rum Baba, complete with happy birthday sign, Mum had the molten guanaja chocolate tart, with salted caramel and mascarpone ice cream (which the two of them would have bought by the gallon if sold). I think mine is the prettiest (I’m biassed of course), which was nectarine with peach compote and sorbet. I ate the entire thing, which is hugely rare - post allergies I don’t have the sweetest of teeth any more but this was light, fresh and delicious.
We finished on a sweet amuse bouche - mine was a jelly, and theirs were beautiful, tiny creme patissere tarts.
I would highly recommend Caractere, it was, as you can see, incredible food, seriously good value for money and a 10/10 experience. We went on a Friday lunchtime and had the restaurant to ourselves. Entertainingly, Ben thought I’d booked it out for him - I love his expectations, and belief in my bank account, which is sorely lacking!
This was part one, part two and three will come in a later edition. I went big!
I’ll be back soon, we’re off for a picnic later and have lots more to tell you. Enjoy the last days of summer <3